Contents
1. INTRODUCTION

ROMAN KINGDOM
2. Beginnings of Rome
3. Institutions of Early Rome
4. Etruscan Kings of Rome
5. Reorganization of Kingdom

ROMAN REPUBLIC
6. Struggle against Kingship
7. Struggle for Economic Rights
8. Struggle for Equal Laws
9. Struggle for Political Equality
10. Conquest of Latium
11. Conquest of Central Italy
12. Conquest of Southern Italy
13. Supremacy of Rome in Italy
14. First Punic War
15. Second Punic War
16. Conquests in East
17. Reduction of Roman Conquests
18. Rome as a World Power
19. Times of Gracchi
20. Times of Marius and Sulla
21. Times of Pompey and Caesar
22. Times of Antony and Octavius

ROMAN EMPIRE
23. Reign of Augustus
24. Julian Emperors
25. Flavian Emperors
26. Five Good Emperors
27. Decline of Empire
28. Reorganization of Empire
29. Extinction of Western Empire
Outlines of Roman History
by William C. Morey, Ph.D., D.C.L.
New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: American Book Company (1901).


 

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CHAPTER XX

THE TIMES OF MARIUS AND SULLA

The Rise of Marius, I.The Social War and the Rise of Sulla, II.The Civil War between Marius and Sulla, III.The Dictatorship of Sulla (B.C. 82-79), IV.


I. THE RISE OF MARIUS

   New Phase of the Civil Strife.—The troubles under the Gracchi had grown out of the attempts of two patriotic men to reform the evils of the state. The shedding of Roman blood had been limited to riots in the city, and to fights between the factions of the different parties. We now come to the time when the political parties seek the aid of the army; when the civil strife becomes in reality a civil war, and the lives of citizens seem of small account compared with the success of this or that political leader. To understand this second phase of the revolution, we must consider what was the condition of Rome after the fall of the Gracchi; how Marius came to the front as the leader of the popular party; and how he was overthrown by Sulla as the leader of the aristocratic party.

   Corrupt Rule of the Aristocracy.—After the fall of the Gracchi the rule of the aristocracy was restored, and the government became more corrupt than ever before. The senators were often incompetent, and they had no clearly defined policy. They seemed desirous only to retain power and to enrich themselves, while the real interests of the people were forgotten. The little farms which Tiberius Gracchus had tried to create were again swallowed up in large estates. The provincials were ground down with heavy taxes. The slaves were goaded into insurrection. The sea swarmed with pirates, and the frontiers were threatened by foreign enemies.

   The Jugurthine War and Marius (B.C. 111-105).—The attention of the senate was first directed to a war in Africa. This war has no great interest for us, except that it shows how corrupt Rome was, and that it brought to the front a great soldier, who became for a time the leader of the people.

   The war in Africa grew out of the attempt of Jugurtha to make himself king of Numidia, which kingdom we remember was an ally of Rome. The senate sent commissioners to Numidia in order to settle the trouble; but the commissioners sold themselves to Jugurtha as soon as they landed in Africa. The Roman people were incensed, and war was declared against Jugurtha. The conduct of the war was placed in the hands of the consul, L. Calpurnius Bestia, who on arriving in Africa accepted Jugurtha’s gold and made peace. The people were again indignant, and summoned Jugurtha to Rome to testify against the consul. When Jugurtha appeared before the assembly, and was about to make his statement, one of the tribunes, who had also been bought by African gold, put a veto upon the proceedings; so that by the bribery of a tribune it became impossible to punish the bribery of a consul. Jugurtha remained in Rome until he caused one of his rivals to be murdered, when he was banished from the city. He expressed his private opinion of Rome when he called it “a venal city, ready to perish whenever it could find a purchaser.”

   The war in Numidia was continued under the new consul, Q. Caecilius Metellus, who selected as his lieutenant Gaius Marius, a rough soldier who had risen from the ranks, but who had a real genius for war. So great was the success of Marius that he was elected consul, and superseded Metellus in the supreme command of the African army. Marius fulfilled all the expectations of the people; he defeated the enemy, and Jugurtha was made a prisoner. A triumph was given to the conqueror, in which the captive king was led in chains; and Marius became the people’s hero.

   Marius and the Cimbric War (B.C. 113-101).—But a greater glory now awaited Marius. While he had been absent in Africa, Rome was threatened by a deluge of barbarians from the north. The Cimbri and Teutones, fierce peoples from Germany, had pushed down into the southern part of Gaul, and had overrun the new province of Narbonensis (established B.C. 120). It seemed impossible to stay these savage invaders. Army after army was defeated. It is said that sixty thousand Romans perished in one battle at Arausio (B.C. 107) on the banks of the Rhone. The way seemed open to Italy, and all eyes turned to Marius as the only man who could save Rome. On the same day on which he received his triumph, Marius was reelected to the consulship, and assigned to his new command. This was contrary to law, to reelect an officer immediately after his first term; but the Romans had come to believe that “in the midst of arms, the laws are silent.”

   Marius set to work to reorganize the Roman army. The army became no longer a raw body of citizens arranged according to wealth; but a trained body of soldiers drawn from all classes of society, and devoted to their commander. With the discretion of a true soldier Marius determined to be fully prepared before meeting his formidable foe. The Cimbri turned aside for a time into Spain. Marius remained patiently on the Rhone, drilling his men and guarding the approaches to the Alps. As the time passed by, the people continued to trust him, and elected him as consul a third, and then a fourth time. At length the barbarians reappeared, ready for the invasion of Italy. One part, the Teutones, prepared to invade Italy from the west; while the other part, the Cimbri, prepared to cross the Alps into the northwestern corner of Italy. Against the Teutones Marius posted his own army; and to meet the Cimbri he dispatched his colleague, Q. Lutatius Catulus. In the battle of Aquae Sextiae he annihilated the host of the Teutones (B.C. 102); and the people elected him a fifth time to the consulship. Soon the Cimbri crossed the Alps and drove Catulus across the Po. Marius joined him, drove back the barbarians, and utterly routed them near Vercellae (B.C. 101). Italy was thus saved. For this twofold victory Rome gave to Marius a magnificent triumph, celebrated with double splendor. He was hailed as the savior of his Country, the second Camillus, and the third Romulus.

   Marius as a Party Leader.—Marius was now at the height of his popularity. There had never before been a man in Rome who so far outshone his rivals. As he was a man of the common people, the leaders of the popular party saw that his great name would be a help to their cause.

   The men who aspired to the leadership of the popular party since the death of the Gracchi were Saturninus and Glaucia. To these men Marius now allied himself, and was elected to the consulship for the sixth time. This alliance formed a sort of political “ring,” which professed to rule the state in the interest of the people; but which aroused a storm of opposition on the part of the senators. As in the days of the Gracchi, tumults arose, and the streets of Rome again became stained with blood. The senate called upon Marius, as consul, to put down the insurrection. Marius reluctantly complied; and in the conflict that followed, his colleagues, Saturninus and Glaucia, were killed. Marius now fell into disrepute. Having at first allied himself to the popular leaders and afterward yielded to the senate, he lost the confidence of both parties. In spite of his greatness as a soldier, he proved his utter incapacity as a party leader. He soon retired from Rome in the hope of recovering his popularity, and of coming back when the tide should turn in his favor.


II. THE SOCIAL WAR AND THE RISE OF SULLA

   Rome and the Italian Allies.—With the failure of Marius, and the death of his colleagues, the senate once more recovered the reins of government. But the troubles still continued. The Italian allies were now clamoring for their rights, and threatening war if their demands were not granted. We remember (see p. 94) that when Rome had conquered Italy, she did not give the Italian people the rights of citizenship. They were made subject allies, but received no share in the government. The Italian allies had furnished soldiers for the Roman armies, and had helped to make Rome the mistress of the Mediterranean. They believed, therefore, that they were entitled to all the rights of Roman citizens; and some of the patriotic leaders of Rome believed so too. But it seemed as difficult to break down the distinction between Romans and Italians as it had been many years before to remove the barriers between the patricians and the plebeians.

   Attempt and Failure of Drusus.—At this crisis there appeared it new reformer, the tribune M. Livius Drusus, son of the Drusus who opposed Gaius Gracchus. He was a well-disposed man, who seemed to believe that all the troubles of the state could be settled by a series of compromises. Of a noble nature, of pure motives, and of generous disposition, he tried to please everybody, and succeeded in pleasing nobody. First, to please the populace, he proposed to increase the largesses of grain; and to make payment easy by introducing a cheap copper coin which should pass for the same value as the previous silver one. Next, to reconcile the senators and the equites, he proposed to select the jurors (iudices) from both classes, thus dividing the power between them. Finally, to meet the demands of the Italians, he proposed to grant them what they asked for, the Roman franchise.

   It was one thing to propose these laws; it was quite another thing to pass them. As the last law was the most offensive, he began by uniting the equites and the people for the purpose of passing the first two laws. These were passed against the will of the senate, and amid scenes of great violence. The senate declared the laws of Drusus null and void. Disregarding this act of the senate as having no legal force, he then proposed to submit to the assembly the law granting the franchise to the Italians. But this law was as offensive to the people as the others had been to the senate. Denounced by the senate as a traitor and abandoned by the people, this large-hearted and unpractical reformer was at last murdered by an unknown assassin; and all his efforts came to nothing.

   Revolt of the Italian Allies (B.C. 90).—The death of Drusus drove the Italians to revolt. The war which followed is known in history as the “social war,” or the war of the allies (socii). It was, in fact, a war of secession. The purpose of the allies was now, not to obtain the Roman franchise, but to create a new Italian nation, where all might be equal. They accordingly organized a new republic with the central government at Corfinium, a town in the Apennines. The new state was modeled after the government at Rome, with a senate of five hundred members, two consuls, and other magistrates. Nearly all the peoples of central and southern Italy joined in this revolt.

   Rome was now threatened with destruction, not by a foreign enemy like the Cimbri and Teutones, but by her own subjects. The spirit of patriotism revived; and the parties ceased for a brief time from their quarrels. Even Marius returned to serve as a legate in the Roman army. A hundred thousand men took the field against an equal number raised by the allies. In the first year the war was unfavorable to Rome. In the second year (B.C. 89) new preparations were made and new commanders were appointed: Marius, on account of his age, was not continued in his command; while L. Cornelius Sulla, who was once a subordinate of Marius, was made chief commander in Campania. Marius felt deeply this slight, and began to be envious of his younger rival. The great credit of bringing this war to a close was due to Pompeius Strabo (the father of Pompey the Great) and Sulla. The first Italian capital, Corfinium, was taken by Pompeius; and the second capital, Bovianum, was captured by Sulla (B.C. 88). The social war was thus ended; but it had been a great affliction to Italy. It is roughly estimated that three hundred thousand men, Romans and Italians, lost their lives in this struggle. The compensation of this loss was the incorporation of Italy with Rome.

   The Enfranchisement of Italy.—Although Rome was victorious in the field, the Italians obtained what they had demanded before the war began, that is, the rights of Roman citizenship. The Romans granted the franchise (1) to all Latins and Italians who had remained loyal during the war (lex Iulia, B.C. 90); and (2) to every Italian who should be enrolled by the praetor within sixty days of the passage of the law (lex Plautia Papiria, B.C. 89). Every person to whom these provisions applied was now a Roman citizen. The policy of incorporation, which had been discontinued for so long a time, was thus revived. The distinction between Romans, Latins, and Italians was now broken down, at least so far as the Italian peninsula was concerned. The greater part of Italy was joined to the ager Romanus, and Italy and Rome became practically one nation.

   The Elevation of Sulla.—Another result of the social war, which had a great effect upon the destinies of Rome, was the rise of Sulla. War was not a new occupation for Sulla. In the campaign against Jugurtha he had served as a lieutenant of Marius. In the Cimbric war he had displayed great courage and ability. And now he had become the most conspicuous commander in the Italian war. As a result of his brilliant exploits, he was elected to the consulship. The senate also recognized him as the ablest general of the time, when it now appointed him to conduct the war in the East against the great enemy of Rome, Mithridates, king of Pontus.


III. THE CIVIL WAR BETWEEN MARIUS AND SULLA

   The Jealousy of Marius.—Marius had watched with envy the growing fame of Sulla. Although old enough to retire from active life, he was mortified in not receiving the command of the Eastern army. When Sulla was now appointed to this command, Marius determined if possible to displace him, or to satisfy his revenge in some other way. From this time Marius, who once seemed to possess the elements of greatness, appears to us as a vindictive and foolish old man, deprived of reason and the sense of honor. To prove that he had not lost the vigor of youth, it is said that he used to appear in the Campus Martius and exercise with the young soldiers in wrestling and boxing. The chief motive which now seemed to influence him was the hatred of Sulla and the Sullan party.

   Marius rejoins the Popular Party.—To regain his influence with the people Marius once more entered politics, and joined himself to the popular leaders. The most prominent of these leaders was now the tribune P. Sulpicius Rufus. With the aid of this politician, Marius hoped to win back the favor of the people, to weaken the influence of the senate, which had supported Sulla, and then to displace Sulla himself. This programme was set forth in what are called the “Sulpician laws” (B.C. 88). By the aid of an armed force these laws were passed, and two messengers were sent to Sulla to command him to turn over his army to Marius. To displace a commander legally appointed by the senate was an act unheard of, even in this period of revolution.

   Sulla appeals to the Army.—If Marius and Sulpicius supposed that Sulla would calmly submit to such an outrage, they mistook his character. Sulla had not yet left Italy. His legions were still encamped in Campania. He appealed to them to support the honor and authority of their commander. They responded to his appeal, and Sulla at the head of his troops marched to Rome. For the first time the Roman legions fought in the streets of the capital, and a question of politics was settled by the army. Marius and Sulpicius were driven from the city, and Sulla for the time being was supreme. He called together the senate, and caused the leaders of the popular party to be declared outlaws. He then annulled the laws passed by Sulpicius, and gave the senate the power hereafter to approve or reject all laws before they should be submitted to the people. With the army at his back Sulla could do what he pleased. When he had placed the government securely in the hands of the senate, as he thought, he left Rome for the purpose of conducting the war against Mithridates in the East.

   The Flight of Marius.—Marius was now an exile, a fugitive from the country which he had once saved. The pathetic story of his flight and wanderings is graphically told by Plutarch. He says that Marius set sail from Ostia, and was forced by a storm to land at Circeii (see map, p. 167), where he wandered about in hunger and great suffering; that his courage was kept up by remembering that when a boy he had found an eagle’s nest with seven young in it, which a soothsayer had interpreted as meaning that he would be consul seven times; that he was again taken on board a vessel and landed at Minturnae, where he was captured and condemned to death; that the slave who was ordered to kill him dropped his sword as he heard the stern voice of his intended victim shouting, “Man, darest thou kill Gaius Marius?” that he was then released and wandered to Sicily, and then to Africa, where, a fallen hero, he sat amid the ruins of Carthage; that at last he found a safe retreat in a little island off the African coast, and waited for vengeance and the time of his seventh consulship.

   Sulla and the Mithridatic War (B.C. 88-84).—While Marius was thus enduring the miseries of exile, Sulla was gathering fresh glories in the East. When Sulla landed in Greece he found the eastern provinces in a wretched state. Mithridates, the king of Pontus (see map, p. 142), had extended his power over a large part of Asia Minor. He had overrun the Roman province of Asia. He had induced the Greek cities on the coast, which had been brought under the Roman power, to revolt and join his cause. He had massacred over eighty thousand Italians living on the Asiatic coast. He had also sent his armies into Greece and Macedonia, and many of the cities there, including Athens, had declared in his favor. The Roman power in the East seemed well-nigh broken.

   It was at this time that Sulla showed his greatest ability as a soldier. He drove back the armies of Mithridates, besieged Athens and reduced it. He destroyed an army at Chaeronea (B.C. 86, see map, p. 128), and another at Orchomenus (B.C. 85). Within four years he reëstablished the Roman power, and compelled Mithridates to sign a treaty of peace. The defeated king agreed to give up all his conquests; to surrender eighty war vessels; and to pay 3000 talents ($3,750,000). After imposing upon the disloyal cities of Asia Minor the immense fine of 20,000 talents ($25,000,000), Sulla returned to Italy to find his own party overthrown, and himself an outlaw.

   Cinna and the Marian Massacres.—During the absence of Sulla, Rome had passed through a reign of terror. The time had now come when parties sought to support themselves by slaughtering their opponents. The two consuls who were left in power when Sulla left Rome, were Cn. Octavius, a friend of Sulla, and L. Cornelius Cinna, a friend of Marius. Cinna, who was an extreme partisan, proposed to rescind the laws of Sulla and reënact those of Sulpicius. But the senate was vehemently opposed to any such scheme. When the assembly of the tribes met in the Forum to vote upon this proposal of Cinna, Octavius carried the day in an armed conflict in which ten thousand citizens are said to have lost their lives. But the victory of Octavius was short. Cinna was, it is true, deprived of his office; but following the example of his enemy Sulla, he appealed to the army for support.

   At the same time Marius returned from his exile to aid the cause of Cinna. Uniting their forces, Marius and Cinna then marched upon Rome. The city was taken. Marius saw that the time had now come to satisfy his vengeance for the wrongs which he thought had been done him. The gates of the city were closed, and the massacres began. The first victim was the consul Octavius, whose head was hung up in the Forum. Then followed the leaders of the senatorial part For five days Marius was furious, and revelled in blood. The friends of Sulla were everywhere cut down. The city was a scene of murder, plunder, and outrage. After this spasm of slaughter a reign of terror continued for several months. No man’s life was safe if he was suspected by Marius. Marius and Cinna then declared themselves to be consuls. But Marius held this, his seventh consulship, but a few days, when he died—a great man who had crumbled into ruins.

   After the death of Marius, Cinna, the professed leader of the popular party, ruled with the absolute power of a despot. He declared himself consul each year, and named his own colleague. But he seemed to have no definite purpose, except to wipe out the work of Sulla, and to keep himself supreme. At last, hearing of the approach of Sulla, he led an army to prevent him from landing in Italy; but was killed in a mutiny of his own soldiers.

   Sulla’s War with the Marian Party.—Sulla landed in Italy (B.C. 83) with a victorious army of forty thousand men. He had restored the power of Rome against her enemies abroad; he now set to work to restore her authority against her enemies at home. He looked upon the popular party as a revolutionary faction, ruling with no sanction of law or justice. Its leaders since the death of Cinna were Cn. Papirius Carbo, the younger Marius, and Q. Sertorius. The landing of Sulla in Italy without disbanding his army was the signal for civil war. Southern Italy declared in his favor, and many prominent men looked to him as the deliverer of Rome. The choicest of his new allies was the son of Pompeius Strabo, then a young man of twenty-three, but whose future fame, as Pompey the Great, was destined to equal that of Sulla himself. Sulla marched to Campania and routed the forces of one consul, while troops of the other consul deserted to him in a body. He then attacked the young Marius in Latium, defeated him, and shut him up in the town of Praeneste (see map, p.46). Northern Italy was at the same time held in check by Pompey. A desperate battle was fought at Clusium, in Etruria (see map, p. 81), in which Sulla and Pompey defeated the army of Carbo. At last an army of Samnites which had joined the Marian cause was cut to pieces at the Colline gate (see map, p. 38) under the very walls of Rome. Sulla showed what might be expected of him when he ordered six thousand Samnite prisoners to be massacred in cold blood.

   The Sullan Proscriptions.—With Italy at his feet and a victorious army at his back, Sulla, the champion of the senate, was now the supreme ruler of Rome. Before entering upon the work of reconstructing the government, he determined first of all to complete the work of destroying his enemies. It is sometimes said that Sulla was not a man of vindictive nature. Let us see what he did. He first outlawed all civil and military officers who had taken part in the revolution against him, and offered a reward of two talents (about $2500) to the murderer of any of these men. He then posted a list (proscriptio) containing the names of those citizens whom he wished to have killed. He placed eighty names on the first list, two hundred and twenty more on the second, as many more on the third, and so on until nearly five thousand citizens had been put to death in Rome.

   But these despotic acts were not confined to Rome; they extended to every city of Italy. “Neither temple, nor hospitable hearth, nor father’s house,” says Plutarch, “was free from murder.” Sulla went to Praeneste, and having no time to examine each individual, had all the people brought to one spot to the number of twelve thousand, and ordered them to be massacred. His sense of justice was not satisfied by punishing the living. The infamous Catiline had murdered his own brother before the war had closed, and he asked Sulla to proscribe him as though he were alive—which was done. The heads of the slain victims Sulla caused to be piled in the streets of Rome for public execration. The tomb of Marius himself was broken open and his ashes were scattered. Besides taking the lives of his fellow-citizens, Sulla confiscated the lands of Italy, swept away cities, and wasted whole districts. If the proscriptions of Sulla were not inspired by the mad fury of revenge which led to the Marian massacres, they were yet prompted by the merciless policy of a tyrant.


IV. THE DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA (B.C. 82-79)

   The Office of Perpetual Dictator.—When Sulla had destroyed his enemies he turned to the work of reconstructing the government in the interests of the senate and the aristocracy. The first question with Sulla was, What office should he hold in order to accomplish all he wished to do? The Gracchi had exercised their great influence by being elected tribunes. Marius had risen to power through his successive consulships. But the office neither of tribune nor of consul was suited to the purposes of Sulla. He wished for absolute power—in fact, to hold the royal imperium. But since the fall of the Tarquins no man had ever dared assume the name of “king.” Sulla was shrewd enough to see how he could exercise absolute power under another name than that of king. The dictator was, in fact, a sort of temporary king. To make this office perpetual would be practically to restore the royal power. Accordingly, Sulla had himself declared dictator to hold the office as long as he pleased. All his previous acts were then confirmed. He was given the full power of life and death, the power to confiscate property, to distribute lands, to create and destroy colonies, and to regulate the provinces. Military Support of Sulla’s Power.—Sulla believed that a ruler to be strong must always be ready to draw the sword. He therefore did not mean to lose his hold upon his veteran soldiers. When his twenty-three legions were disbanded, they were not scattered, but were settled in Italy as military colonies. Each legion formed the body of citizens in a certain town, the lands being confiscated and assigned to the soldiers. The legionaries were thus bound in gratitude to Sulla, and formed a devoted body of militia upon which he felt that he could rely. By means of these colonies, Sulla placed his power upon a military basis.

   Restoration of the Senate.—It was one of Sulla’s chief purposes to restore the senate to its former position as the chief ruling body. In the first place, he filled it up with three hundred new members, elected by the comitia tributa from the equites. The senatorial list was no longer to be made out by the censor, but everyone who had been quaestor was now legally qualified to be a senator. In the next place, the jurors (iudices) in criminal trials were henceforth to be taken from the senate, and not from the equestrian order. But as the new senators were from this order, the two classes became reconciled; and Sulla succeeded in doing what Drusus had failed to accomplish. But more than all, no laws could hereafter be passed by the assembly of the tribes until first approved by the senate.

   Weakening of the Assembly.—Sulla saw that the revolutionary acts of the last fifty years had been chiefly the work of the comitia tributa under the leadership of the tribunes. The other assembly—that of the centuries—had, it is true, equal power to make laws. But the assembly of the tribes was more democratic, and the making of laws had gradually passed into the hands of that body. Sulla took away from the tribes the legislative power, and gave to the senate the authority to propose all laws to be submitted to the centuries. The tendency of this change was to limit the assemblies to the mere business of electing the officers—the lower officers being elected by the tribes, and the higher officers by the centuries. To keep control of the elections Sulla enfranchised ten thousand slaves, and gave them the right to vote; these creatures of Sulla were known as “Cornelii,” or Sulla’s freedmen.

   Changes in the Magistrates.—In Sulla’s mind the most revolutionary and dangerous office in the government was that of the tribune. This officer hitherto could practically control the state. He had had the chief control of legislation; and also by his veto he could stop the wheels of government. Sulla changed all this. He limited the power of the tribune to simple “intercession,” that is, the protection of a citizen from an act of official injustice. He also provided that no tribune could be elected to the curule offices. The other officers were also looked after. The consuls and praetors must henceforth devote themselves to their civil duties in the city; and then as proconsuls and propraetors they might afterward be assigned by the senate to the governorship of the provinces. Again, no one could be consul until he had been praetor, nor praetor until he had been quaestor; and the old law was enforced, that no one could hold the same office the second time until after an interval of ten years.

   Reform of the Judicial System.—The most permanent part of Sulla’s reforms was the creation of a regular system of criminal courts. He organized permanent commissions (quaestiones perpetuae) for the trial of different kinds of crimes. Every criminal case was thus tried before a regular court, composed of a presiding judge, or praetor, and a body of jurymen, called iudices. We must remember that whenever the word iudices is used in the political history of this period it refers to these jurors in criminal cases, who were first chosen from the senate, then from the equites, and now under Sulla from the senate again. The organization of regular criminal courts by Sulla was the wisest and most valuable part of his legislation.

   Sulla’s Abdication and Death.—After a reign of three years (B.C. 82-79), and after having placed the government securely in the hands of the senate, as he supposed, Sulla resigned the dictatorship. He retired to his country house at Puteoli on the Bay of Naples. He spent the few remaining months of his life in writing his memoirs, which have unfortunately been lost. He hastened his end by dissipation, and died the next year (B.C. 78). The senate decreed him a public funeral, the most splendid that Rome had ever seen. His body was burned in the Campus Martius. Upon the monument which was erected to his memory were inscribed these words: “No friend ever did him a kindness, and no enemy a wrong, without being fully repaid.”

   Sulla was a man of blood and iron. Cool and calculating, definite in his purpose, and unscrupulous in his methods, he was invincible in war and in peace. But the great part of the work which he seemed to accomplish so thoroughly did not long survive him. His great foreign enemy, Mithridates, soon renewed his wars with Rome. His boasted constitution fell in the next political conflict. The career of Sulla, like that of the Gracchi and of Marius, marks a stage in the decline of the republic and the establishment of the empire.



SELECTIONS FOR READING

Merivale, Gen. Hist., Ch. 32, “Rivalry of Marius and Sulla” (
1).1
Mommsen, Vol. III., Bk. IV., Ch. 10, “The Sullan Constitution” (2).
Mommsen, abridged, Ch. 22, “Marius as a Revolutionist” (2).
How and Leigh, Ch. 39, “The Social War” (1).
Shuckburgh, Ch. 38, “Mithridates in Asia and Greece” (1).
Taylor, Ch. 11, “Cinna and Sulla” (1).
Beesly, Ch. 15, “Sulla’s Reactionary Measures” (6).
Freeman, Essay on “Sulla” (3).
Plutarch, “Marius,” “Sulla” (11).


SPECIAL STUDY

   THE ROMAN SENATE.—Gow, pp. 193-199 (8); Pelham, pp. 159-167 (1); Shuckburgh, pp. 206-208, 397-399 (1); How and Leigh, p. 298 (1); Merivale, Gen. Hist., pp. 209-212 (1); Mommsen, Vol. 1., pp 406-412 (2); Ramsay and Lanciani, pp. 254-263 (8); Harper’s Dict. Antiqq., “Senatus” (8).



1 The figure in parenthesis refers to the number of the topic in the
Appendix, where a fuller title of the book will be found.


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FORUM ROMANUM